Herbert Marcuse

Who was Herbert Marcuse?

Herbert Marcuse was a German American philosopher, sociologist, and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at the universities of Berlin and then at Freiburg, where he received his Ph.D. He was a prominent figure in the Frankfurt-based Institute for Social Research – what later became known as the Frankfurt School. He was married to Sophie Wertheim, Inge Neumann, and Erica Sherover. Active in the United States after 1934, his intellectual concerns were the dehumanizing effects of capitalism and modern technology. He offers a powerful critique of modern industrial societies and the material and entertainment cultures they manufacture, arguing that they use new forms of social control to dupe the masses into accepting the ways things are.

After his studies, in the late 1960s and the 1970s he became known as the preeminent theorist of the New Left and the student movements of Germany, France, and the US. Between 1943 and 1950, Marcuse worked in US Government Service, which helped form the basis of his book Soviet Marxism.